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EJToday: Top Headlines

EJToday is SEJ's selection of new and outstanding stories on environmental topics in print and on the air, updated every weekday. SEJ also offers a free e-mailed digest of the day's EJToday postings, called SEJ-beat. SEJ members are subscribed automatically, but may opt out here. Non-members may subscribe here. EJToday is also available via RSS feed. Please see Editorial Guidelines for EJToday content.

"When 39,000 tons of coal ash spilled into North Carolina's Dan River in February, it grabbed national headlines and raised the ire of environmentalists. But by sheer numbers, the 14 coal ash ponds spread across North Carolina pale in comparison to the nearly 3,000 various waste sites across the state. That includes decommissioned industrial facilities, abandoned dry cleaners and old landfills."

"As North Carolina moves to tap potentially rich natural gas reserves, some warn that the drilling process is fraught with environmental hazards. The Fayetteville Observer explores the debate, and how this new industry could transform the Cape Fear region, in a six-day series this week."

"A federal appeals court has refused to reconsider a major decision in the long-running battle over the 2010 gulf oil spill, leaving in place an earlier ruling that forces the British oil company BP to pay some businesses for economic damages without the businesses having to prove the losses were directly caused by the spill."

"Bosnia said on Monday that more than a quarter of its 4 million people had been affected by the worst floods to hit the Balkans in living memory, comparing the "terrifying" destruction to that of the country's 1992-95 war."

"Saying there’s a 'race against time,' an advocacy group said this week that climate change – leading to sea level rise and worsening wildfires – is putting some of the nation’s most significant historical sites at risk."

"On Memorial Day weekend in 2011, an unattended campfire in Bear Wallow Wilderness sparked a small brush fire that quickly turned into a holocaust, burning through 538,000 acres and destroying 32 homes in the process. It cost taxpayers more than $79 million to suppress. The Wallow fire was the largest fire in Arizona history, with almost 6,000 people evacuated during the weeks it burned. The San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation, just to the west of where the fire started, was hardly touched."